I've been religiously composting all of our kitchen waste since we moved to The Edge (and before). The yard waste either goes in the compost bin or into a pile in the woods if it might be full of seeds. Early this year I got out the shovel and started spreading the compost around. I used it quite successfully in my outdoor potted plants (all heavy feeding annuals).
It was a pain in the back.
Shoveling the compost that is.
During the winter we have several feet of snow on the ground. The compost bin is at the far side of our backyard. We've been putting a large plastic trash can (with lid) on the deck for winter compost.
We carried it out to the compost bin this spring. The smell lingered for days. Ugh.
The Husband and I are busy, active people. We aren't good at taking the kitchen waste out every day.
We get those little flies all over the kitchen during the summer.
They're annoying.
They lay eggs in the compost bin.
When it's really hot the eggs hatch before we carry the compost out and we get maggots.
In the kitchen.
Gross.
Seriously Gross.
Then came the Great Skunk Event of 2011.
Skunks (and raccoons and opossums and rodents) are all attracted to kitchen scraps.
One of our dogs is a real Predator and will attack and kill anything he finds in the yard. Squirrels, opossums, skunks, rodents. He's even caught and killed (and eaten) birds.
So composting kitchen waste wasn't working too well for us.
[composting leaves from the fall works spectacularly well, on the other hand]
I swallowed my environmentalism. Decided that I can buy compost from the local garden center when I need it and started throwing out kitchen scraps.
Horrors!
I'm such a Bad Girl.
[Don't hate me.]
But I no longer have flies (and maggots) in my kitchen because The Husband and I both forgot to take out the compost.
The chances that a critter will be in the yard trying to get into the compost bin when we let the dogs out at night have gone down.
I'm still a supporter of the idea of composting but it just hasn't been working well for us.
Maybe in the future.
I really wish our town picked up kitchen waste and composted it.
Now here's a pretty picture of Sweet Autumn Clematis on our back deck.
I've been contemplating these issues too, since I started my new (non-poison covered) compost pile. It's closer to my neighbor's yard than my house, I'm a bit worried the critters, smell, etc. will be her problem and not mine (which is not nice). So I have been keeping the kitchen compost in a Home Depot bucket with the lid on (ha) until I get some sort of fancy composting-industry device. Not sure how this will all work out. Especially in winter, when I assume the compost will just freeze... or will it still break down when it's super cold? Anyway, no one's judging you, haha! Who wants maggots? Yuck!
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